The present invention relates in general to an automatic dialing device, and in particular to a new and useful automatic dialing device which contains a prestored telephone number for dialing a special exchange, and a pre-stored PIN (Personal Identification Number) for use in accessing a credit account at the special exchange, in turn for charging telephone calls subsequently dialed by the user or dialed through the special exchange.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,706,275 discloses a telephone system utilizing a special exchange at which a credit account is opened containing a certain amount of prepaid credit, usable to make telephone calls.
A user of the system opens an account and deposits a certain amount of money in the account. When, at a remote location, the user wishes to use his or her account for making phone calls, the user calls the special exchange and uses a security code, for example a PIN or Personal Identification Number. Once the user's identity is established through the code, the user can make an outgoing telephone call to any desired location. The special exchange monitors the call and deducts ongoing amounts from the users account to pay for the call. If at any point the account is depleted, the call is immediately terminated. Otherwise at the end of the call a new balance remains to the user for making subsequent calls.
Credit cards having electronic features are also known. See for example U.S. Pat. No. 4,707,594 showing a self-contain consumer transaction card with keyboard, display and other features normally associated with calculator size structures.
A similar identification card is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,692,601.
Other patents are concerned with how active electronic elements can be fused or otherwise connected into a credit card size structure. See for example U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,026,452 and 4,966,857.
Also relevant in this field are U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,822,990, 5,066,047 and 5,166,501. Also see French patent reference 26 40 549 published Jun. 22, 1990.
Autodialing devices are also known. They are generally about the size of a calculator and include a tone generator, keyboard and internal storage means for storing different telephone numbers which can be called up and automatically dialed into a touch-tone telephone receiver, using the tone generator.
Currently, a common way of making a telephone call is to dial 0, followed by the number to be called, followed by a request from the telephone company for the user's credit card number, which is usually the user's telephone number followed by a four-digit PIN. The user then dials in his or her card number.
Since the advent of this technique, the theft of phone serves has been on the rise. Generally an unscrupulous observer will memorize the number sequence of a caller's credit card number and then use it to make unauthorized calls. For this reason many users have taken to carefully shielding their dialing operation at a touch-tone phone.
It is also common to come upon touch-tone phones which are not operating properly. Phones that operate on pulses rather than tones are also still wide spread in some parts of the country. Also, some phones in public places are connected to receiving incoming calls only and to preclude outgoing calls.
In all of these situations, security and dialing ability would be useful to the user.